Ten days ago Celtics Life writer three toe wrote the following column: Everything so convenient for NBA in dunk contest. Today it turns out a lot of his suspicions could very well be right as an official NBA memo has been discovered that was sent out over an hour prior to the dunk contest, but listed Blake Griffin as the 2011 Dunk Contest Winner. This information comes courtesy of benmaller.com (worth a click to read the entire article) and also has the following tidbits:

The NBA did send out a corrected version of the release later Saturday night, but that’s not enough for those people who believe that the first version proves the event was fixed.

According to a mole who works for a popular basketball website, Griffin WAS asked about this official release being sent out claiming he’d won before the contest had even started. He wasn’t happy.

Facts about Blake Griffin on All-Star Weekend

Click to view full size press release

- Subway spent a reported $3 million in a Blake Griffin media campaign All-Star weekend. ZERO was obviously spent on JaVale McGee of the Wizards.

- NBA officials forced Blake Griffin to use a Kia, the official car sponsor of the league, rather than a higher end car he wanted to use for his final dunk. This product placement paid off in a commercial and possible endorsement deal for Griffin.
- Blake Griffin is the most searched athlete in the world on YouTube. It would have been bad for the NBA’s business if he had lost the dunk contest to a scrub from the Wzards.

- Nike had an entire marketing campaign planned around Blake Griffin winning the dunk contest. They began to reveal the plan this week for the Nike Hyperdunk 2011 10.0 for Blake Griffin.

Now I'm not as much of a conspiracy theorist as others, but for a league that has had it's credibility questioned after the Tim Donaghy gambling scandal, you can't blindly dismiss this. Yes this was only a dunk contest and not the 2002 Western Conference Finals where Chris Webber and the Kings got completely hosed in L.A. by the league's mandate to have a 7th game, but it simply shows the NBA will "fix things" in the interest of making more money. That can't be good.

An ironic kicker: Who was JaVale McGee's dunk coach for this dunk contest ten days ago in L.A? Chris Webber.

Of course this was fixed, Blake Griffin in his building and if he wins the NBA makes more money. It's basically like the WWE now, in our Cavs series there was not one game that the Celtcs didn't "commit" more fouls. I was at game 4 and all I can remember is screaming Bullshit after 3 rediculous calls and Rondo's historic TPD

In the movie The Usual Suspects (phenomenal movie by the way) , the master criminal Keyser Soze's big thing is that he had people working for him, yet they didn't know they were working for him. The NBA is like a bunch of D-level students attempting this same trick. They don't tell the athletes, I don't think they tell some of the broadcasters and media members either that there is a fix. So then when one of these idiots let's it slip that the winner is predetermined, and by all accounts the other dunkers show-up the "winner," and NBA commentators start talking about how Griffin's dunk wasn't that impressive, the NBA just looks stupid and incredibly dishonest.

They are trying to have scripted results like the WWE yet be taken seriously as a legitimate competitive sport, and they are failing badly at it.

This is why Three Toe is my hero. Not surprised to see this but at the end of the day as long as this kind of shit doesn't happen during real basketball games I'm fine with it. Dunk contest is a popularity contest whether it is fixed or not.

The schedule is for the next day, yes, after it happened, but the schedule could have been sent out in advance. However (and it may just be the optimist in me) I think that we should give a little slack, at least for now. When the superbowl happens, both outcomes are printed on merchandise so that the next day, whatever the outcome, the merchandise can be ready. It's totally possible that four versions of that schedule were made, and the one that happened to get out had Blake's name on it. Need I remind anyone of this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deweytruman12.jpg

Documents will neither prove nor disprove the fact that the Slam Dunk contest was fixed in my eyes. I've made my final judgment when Blake proceeded to the final round instead of DeRozan and Ibaka. DeRozan came close, but Ibaka's 90 points were just insulting.

Anon, from the original article, "Except for the fact that the release was sent via email at 5:28 pm PST on Saturday Feb. 19, over an hour before the Slam Dunk contest’s scheduled 6:30 pm PST start."

Miller, they wouldn't send 4 separate things out, just one that says "dunk contest winner [TBD]" or something like that. The article also mentions that they sent out a correction later. why would they do that? I'm all for optimism until it becomes blinding.

saver, i agree and i bet blake thinks he won legitimately. but really, the travesty here is that semih wasnt in the contest.

Ok thanks three toe...I agree, it was a fix from the beginning regardless of the docs. Ibaka's dunk from the free throw line was much more impressive than the KIA "jump." Way overly hyped. Anyone else sick of this kid yet?! LOL - ONTO 18 PLEASE.

Pretty much every other contender did a dunk that was of a a higher difficutly I think anyways...most of what I'd say has been said already...but WOW the writer of this memo is a jackass with spelling...On an important document wouldn't you revise it real quickly at least? Even a cursory revision would have caught a few of those errors. Anyone else notice that?

Did anyone read that document. Its fake cause Terrell Owens played in the Celebrity game in Dallas, not LA. Also where did it say they named Blake Griffin the slam dunk champ? I will agree that Blake wasn't the best dunker out there but that document proves nothing.